BORN ON THIS DAY: DANNY BATTH

Born on this day in 1990 is former Sunderland centre back Danny Batth, who recently signed for Derby County. The defender arrived on Wearside in January 2022 and was a big part of our promotion-winning side that finally escaped League One.

Batth was born in Brierley Hill, in the West Midlands. He joined local side Wolves at just 15 years old, and would go on to spend ten years with the club (including a few early loan spells to Colchester United and both Sheffield United and Wednesday). He was a consistent figure at the back, and played a big role in Wolves’ Championship-winning team who finished on 99 points back in 17/18. Strangely enough that was the same season we were relegated to League One. But Wolves were unable to beat us, picking up just one draw out of their two games against SAFC.

However when Wanderers got to the Premier League, Batth fell out of favour under gaffer Nuno Espirito Santo. He was loaned to Boro, where he played 13 games under Tony Pulis at the start of the season. The loan was cut short in January though, before he was sold to Stoke for a fee of £3 million.

He was very well-respected at Stoke, and had an instant impact. Playing 17 times in the second half of the season, he helped shore up the defence and kept eight clean sheets. He showed great leadership when Nathan Jones almost got them relegated, and was a huge part of Michael O’Neill’s plans as the Potters avoided relegation.

In January 2022, with Batth dropping out of the team due to a lack of pace and his age catching up with him, he had six months left on his contract. While many believed he could have joined another Championship club and played regularly, he opted to drop to League One and help Lee Johnson at the time take Sunderland up.

He made his debut for the Lads in a solid 1-0 win at home to Portsmouth. We thought it was a huge result at the time, as we’d just came off the back of: A 3-3 draw at Wycombe (where the first team had Covid and we should have called the game off), a 3-1 hammering by Lincoln at the hands of Chris Maguire, and a disappointing draw with Accrington Stanley who equalised after having a man sent off. It really was a bizarre run of bad results, in keeping with the ‘streaky’ tag that followed Lee Johnson like a bad smell. It turns out that the win against Pompey was a false dawn, as we went to Bolton the following week and got smashed 6-0, with Batth scoring a comedy diving header into his own goal. Johnson was sacked the following day.

Batth, signing in January, had lost his new manager by February and everyone expected the season to tail off. It looked like Batth was a journeyman centre back who’s legs had gone, and couldn’t keep up with the pace of the English game anymore. Alex Neil came in, and actually didn’t play Batth at first. In fact, the experienced defender missed out on Neil’s first eight games in charge. But he came back in for our 1-0 win at Gillingham, and would play regularly as we charged to the play-off final.

So then, back in the Championship, question marks initially remained over whether Batth would be able to cut it in a higher division. But he was one of our most consistent performers under Tony Mowbray. He was rock-solid at the back, enabling the talented forwards like Amad, Roberts, Clarke, Stewart and Pritchard to stay upfield and get the fans off their seat. He certainly was crucial in getting us into the play-offs and his presence was sorely missed in those Luton Town semi-finals.

Danny was named the Supporters' Player of the Year for 22/23. However, with the club's hierarchy trying to reduce the average age of the squad and offload some high earners, he was allowed to leave the club for free, joining Norwich City. Since his Sunderland exit, Batth spent a year with the Canaries, a year with Blackburn and is now on a one-year contract at Pride Park.